This morning, the British government's Information Commissioner's Office announced it was opening an inquiry into the ongoing PlayStation Network outage and data leak. Now, US and Canadian government bodies have joined the chorus demanding answers about the exposure, which could potentially lead to the theft of up to 77 million PSN users' personal information.

Reuters reports that US Representative Mary Bono Mack (R-California) has asked members of the US House of Representatives' subcommittee for commerce, manufacturing, and trade to begin looking into the data leak. Mack, the widow of the late US Representative Sonny Bono, chairs the subcommittee, which will apparently soon weigh in on whether hearings are needed on the matter. Bono Mack's move comes one day after US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called on Sony to offer full disclosure to PSN users if their information was compromised.

Reuters also reports that Sony has contacted the San Diego office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's cybercrimes unit to look into the data breach. The news service could not get public comment, but did cite unnamed sources as saying say the law enforcement body was investigating the matter.

Meanwhile, north of the border, Canadian authorities are also looking into the PSN debacle. Canada's privacy commissioner told the Vancouver Sun that it, too, is launching an inquiry.

"We are currently looking into this matter and are seeking information from Sony," a spokesperson said. "We will determine next steps once we have a full understanding of the incident."

Unfortunately for Sony, the worst may be yet to come. "European countries are going to go crazy and be all over this," Dan Burk, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, told Reuters. "They are absolutely obsessed about companies holding personal information."

The increasing attention of government bodies is just the latest wrinkle in the increasingly convoluted timeline of the PlayStation Network outage and data leak. Earlier today, the first lawsuit over the matter was filed, with an Alabama man seeking class-action status on behalf of all PlayStation users whose accounts may have been compromised.

"European countries are going to go crazy and be all over this," Dan Burk, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, told Reuters. "They are absolutely obsessed about companies holding personal information."

"European countries are going to go crazy and be all over this," Dan Burk, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, told Reuters. "They are absolutely obsessed about companies holding personal information."

"All of the data was protected, and access was restricted both physically and through the perimeter and security of the network," the company said in a statement on the official PlayStation Blog. "The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack."

If these lawsuits go international Sony might as well kiss their gaming division goodbye.

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That would be a disaster to the gaming industry.

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I doubt it. Like I said in one of my earlier posts:

When Atari bowed out of the console race, Sony took their place. When Sega bowed out of the console race, Microsoft took their place.

I will bet my left nut that someone will take Sony's place.

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Except it would still be a major hit. It doesn't matter if they are replaced, it will not happen day 0, even Microsoft had problems to get a fanbase in the start, and the new company will have to be really strong to make all the developers accept them. Not only that, but the initial public resistence.

Either way, I don't care, as I don't think Sony will lose their gaming company because of this.

"All of the data was protected, and access was restricted both physically and through the perimeter and security of the network," the company said in a statement on the official PlayStation Blog. "The entire credit card table was encrypted and we have no evidence that credit card data was taken. The personal data table, which is a separate data set, was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system that was breached in a malicious attack."

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Good news if so and if they did have such measures installed I might be able to look at a Sony network engineer and maintain a straight face.

Bad news- I was just the word "solution" away from winning at buzzword bingo.

Do we have our credit cards here?
Is Costello the owner of an enormous corporation and repeatedly claims that it's impossible for someone to get that information?
Are there still some people who would sue him?